U.S. Published Patent Application No. 2012/0069352, which is incorporated by reference herein, describes a method for optically scanning and measuring a scene using a laser scanner, in which a scene is registered with multiple scans. For this purpose, the laser scanner is taken to a new location after a scan to generate an additional scan. The generated scans with their measuring points are registered in a joint coordinate system, wherein the entity of measuring points forms a three-dimensional (3D) point cloud.
Through use of known methods for registering multiple scans of a scene, the registering process, which may be based on the pairwise examination of two scans, should theoretically be unambiguous and may take place completely automatically. In practice, however, for reasons of performance, not all scans are typically examined pairwise, but usually only within a neighborhood that results, for example, from the history of registering of the scene. This is why interruptions in the registering process may occur.
Embodiments of the present invention are based on improving a method of the type mentioned hereinabove.